Four Cambridgeshire criminals have been made to pay back almost £500,000 under the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) following investigations by the Eastern Region Special Operations Unit (ERSOU).

Neil Riley, 53, and his wife Kim Riley, 54, both of Crowson Crescent, Peterborough, were ordered to pay back around £157,000 following a POCA Confiscation Proceedings hearing at Peterborough Crown Court.

The couple were sentenced in May 2017 after being convicted of fraud offences. Over a period of three years, the couple fraudulently obtained more than £150,000 from a vulnerable and elderly victim which they then used for their own victim.

A woman from Cambridge was ordered to pay back £33,000 following a POCA hearing. In 2015 Rosina Ceaser, 59, of Chatsworth Avenue, was convicted of money laundering after money defrauded from a victim passed through her bank account.

These are just two of a number of recent successful results achieved by ERSOU’s Regional Economic Crime Unit (RECU).

In December, a man who ran a property management company and defrauded clients of almost £400,000 was ordered to pay back more than £389,000 following another successful investigation by the unit.

Mark Procter, 42, formerly of Barker Close, Hail Weston, St Neots, was ordered to pay back the money after he was sentenced to three years and four months imprisonment for a number of fraud offences.

Detective Inspector Rob Turner, of the ERSOU RECU, said: “These recent proceeds of crime orders show how seriously the courts take these types of offences, where offenders take advantage of others to illegally gain access to funds which aren’t theirs.

“Our unit has been working incredibly hard to ensure that such ill-gotten gains are rightfully re-paid and I’m really pleased with these recent results. This should send a strong message to others that crime really will never pay.”

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